Paint matching (am I expecting too much...?)

A while back I had to demo a kitchen cabinet to allow a new fridge to be
moved in... I was in a time crunch and didn't have time to go to a real
paint store that day so I went to That Orange-Colored Store and had them
mix me a quart of paint. I took with me a vent grille that had been
painted over to color match. The guy tried, and even wasted a quart on
his first try when it came out too dark (color is a flat white tinted
slightly blue) second try looked good in the store but when I painted
the wall it ended up slightly more brownish-grey than the rest of the
wall. (I also used almost the whole quart just to cover the area that
was behind one large kitchen cabinet...)
Unfortunately this @#$@#$% color is on about half the walls in my house,
and I have a couple other little areas that I'd like to address
(changing light fixtures in living room and removing mirror over mantel;
repainting ceiling at top of stair landing where it was badly prepped;
painting kitchen ceiling where I demo'd an ugly fluorescent fixture and
never patched/painted the ceiling) but we're not quite ready to repaint
any whole rooms yet. So I would really like to have a couple more
quarts of paint matched to the existing so I can keep doing spot repairs
as I get motivated and not have the house look all ghetto and have
primer spots all over the darn place until whatever room gets a full
repaint.
Today I had a dentist's appt. in the AM so I left early and hit the
closest "real" paint store and brought the same vent grille with me.
They "matched" it while I was visiting with Dr. Hook and I picked up two
quarts (they used Benjamin Moore base.) I just opened one and spread a
little paint on the corner of said vent, it looks like a pure white in
comparison. Not even anywhere near as close as the paint I got from HD.
The few areas I've used the HD paint don't look awful, but it's obvious
that there's a paint mismatch. Is that about the best I can hope for
(in which case I should go back to HD and get a couple more quarts of
the same thing I got last time,) or should I take everything back to the
real paint store and let them try again? I realize you can't see what
I'm working with so you can't really say "that's about as good as it
gets, you're being too picky, just deal until you repaint" or "you can
do better than that, you've just had bad luck with paint guys" (but I
guess that's kind of the feedback I really need)
Not sure if posting pics would help, but if it would, I can take a pic
of the last little spot I did, around the thermostat on the kitchen wall...
nate

Paint is a bitch. Even if you do save those things they put on the top of
paint cans stating exactly how many parts of which color they put in it, you
can have another gallon made down the road, and it comes out looking
different.
This can be for several reasons:
The substrate. Putting it on different things. Different brands of
drywall. Kilz or no Kilz? Primer or no primer? Which primer? How long
has it been there, and how much UV rays from the sun has lightened it? If
it is in a kitchen or bath area, how much oil or steam has changed the
color? Paint looks different after it has soaked into a wall for five years
than that which is a week old.
I have kept those little color things, and gone back later and gotten
EXACTLY the same mix, and painted it on, and it looks different than the
paint on there. Even clothes fade. Car paint jobs fade.
NEVER EVER EVER EVER LOOK AT PAINT UNTIL IT HAS DRIED A WEEK. It takes that
long to get even close to the color it's going to be.
It's not so much a mismatch, as you can get exactly the same paint mixed and
it won't match, it has to do with fading and lots of other factors.
Solutions: Do areas where the mismatching won't be obvious. Repaint the
whole thing from the get go. Change the color scheme so it don't matter.
If you are doing remodeling, prime properly, or Kilz, and then, it may take
two or three coats to get it exactly right. Lower expectations - what you
think is an obvious mismatch won't be noticed by others.
And lastly, consider the ambient light. Lots of paints and colors look
different when viewed at 9 AM versus 2 PM. On a sunny day, or a cloudy day.
HTH, just some things to ponder.
Steve, who knows paint will drive you batty, but only if you let it.

I just scanned over the OP's post, but if it's an option, paint the whole
wall. The color difference will be less noticeable where painted wall meets
unpainted wall due to light hitting each differently and you'll still avoid
repainting the whole room. I'll also second the opinion of dry roller
feathering.

It's not an option *yet* as most walls to which I'm doing this still
have areas that need to be addressed. I'd like to be able to take a
couple days and attack the whole mess but I'm picking away at this for
a couple hours each evening etc. and am just trying to find a stopgap
so whatever I'm working on doesn't look too objectionable.
nate

It's not at all, that's the problem. I've had three different batches
of paint mixed and only one was close enough to even try putting it on
the wall, and it is clearly different - patches look like shadows.
nate

I guess I just don't repaint often enough-- or maybe too often-- but
in 50 years of home-owning and doing my own painting, I don't recall a
single time that I tried to paint part of a wall-- and only a handful
of times that I painted less than the entire room.
Jim

We bought a very old house a couple years ago, and the PO's repainted
before the sale - and they apparently were big fans of mounting stuff
on the wall (e.g. mirrors etc.) and were NOT big fans of removing
things like light fixtures, mirrors, switch plates, etc. when
repainting. So for an example, when we had air conditioning installed
and had the old round thermostat replaced with a new programmable one,
there was an ugly exposed area of old paint, mounting holes, etc. left
behind with a big ridge of brush marks showing the outline of the old
thermostat. Likewise, they'd glued pieces of mirror on the wall in
the living room to conceal the old electrical boxes for wall sconces;
when I ripped those down to install new sconces I've got more
ugliness. (but I still have to take the big mirror - mounted like a
bathroom mirror, with clips - down over the mantel, which will cause
another big mess-o-ugliness) In each case there's enough brush marks,
holes, etc. that most of these areas get a skim coat of drywall mud,
primer, etc.
Once I've got enough of these really egregious trouble spots done,
then we'll likely go ahead and repaint whole walls or rooms, but I'm
just trying to keep the house from looking like a perpetual
construction site while this is going on.
nate

You're expecting way too much. If you had the original can of
paint, it would probably not be dead on out in the middle of a
wall. Any touch up painting will always require painting corner
to corner, top to bottom.

I saved a quart of kitchen wall satin finish paint from when we
painted 8 years ago and when we had to change the mount for our
cordless telephone answering system last month, I mixed a little paint
with the drywall mud and filled in the appropriate areas. Then I
sanded down the entire area and painted it with a 2" roller, doing it
twice. I can't find the edge marks because it blended in so well.
But, the paint is a very mild off-white/yellow color. I washed the
whole wall before starting the patching, and even the sheen matches so
closely that it is difficult where the transition is. But, it was the
exact same apint.
Where I go, to the local big orange box, they smear a heavy coat of
the newly mixed paint on a white paper and then dry it thoroughly with
a hair dryer and check that against the sample you provide. They
prefer an actual chip of the paint to be matched, from some
inconspicuous point on the wall. If they are esperienced, and the
color is a little off, they can add a little of one of the colorants
to the original mix, put it in the shaker and try a second time. Then
they have to change the formula on the paper that they print out to
stick on the can.

I saved a quart of kitchen wall satin finish paint from when we
painted 8 years ago and when we had to change the mount for our
cordless telephone answering system last month, I mixed a little paint
with the drywall mud and filled in the appropriate areas. Then I
sanded down the entire area and painted it with a 2" roller, doing it
twice. I can't find the edge marks because it blended in so well.
But, the paint is a very mild off-white/yellow color. I washed the
whole wall before starting the patching, and even the sheen matches so
closely that it is difficult where the transition is. But, it was the
exact same apint.
Where I go, to the local big orange box, they smear a heavy coat of
the newly mixed paint on a white paper and then dry it thoroughly with
a hair dryer and check that against the sample you provide. They
prefer an actual chip of the paint to be matched, from some
inconspicuous point on the wall. If they are esperienced, and the
color is a little off, they can add a little of one of the colorants
to the original mix, put it in the shaker and try a second time. Then
they have to change the formula on the paper that they print out to
stick on the can.
reply:
I've had good luck with the big box store, too. And if you can peel a big
enough chip off to put in their computer, it will match pretty good, even if
it has aged or faded. It's all up to the individual, as slight differences
may not be a big deal to some people, yet others have to have it just so.
Steve

But if the paint is textured it can toss the reader into tilt mode I
hear. Any sample surface not perpendicular to the reader will be
interpreted as a slightly different shade. Not saying it always will but
the probability is a lot higher.

Follow up:
apparently I wasn't being too picky.
Somehow, miracle of miracles, I actually managed to get free from work
twice in one week so I went back to the Real Paint Store and told the
guy I wasn't happy with the match. He tuned it up and it's MUCH better.
Haven't rolled any on the walls yet but it looks like it is a better
match than I got from the Orange Colored Store. I'll be happy even if
it isn't perfect, just so long as the patches aren't real obvious until
such time as we can repaint. Guess I just got the b-teamer on the first
attempt. And the guy did take notes on his touchup so I can get more if
I need it, but I hope I won't.
So now I get to patch the ceiling in the kitchen, 'cause I can paint it.
Yay! (I think yay?)
Now another paint matching question - I have another area that needs
some spot repairs that's a slightly different color. In that room
however the vent grilles are on the baseboards so I don't have any
easily removable pieces painted the wall color that I can take to the
paint store. How do I get that matched? or do I just take a whole
buttload of color chips home with me and start holding them up to the
wall? (my eye really isn't quite good enough to narrow it down enough
that I can just grab two or three chips...) Or is there an easy way to
peel a sheet of paint off of a wall?
nate

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